Steve Mills and his wife have one daughter. They previously owned two coffee/ice cream shops, currently operate an internet sales company and teach classes, but his primary job involves the paper industry worldwide. Hobbies and interests lie in gardening, photography, recorded music and of course, their pets.

A most excellent seed swap and winter sowing demonstration.

Posted Monday, January 28, 2013, at 7:24 AM

Not to rub it in to those who could not attend, but it was a very pleasant 4 hours spent in Spring Hill this past Saturday. I did not think I would be able to squeak free, but a scheduling change made it possible.

Since I did not plant to attend, I did not bring any seeds to swap or homemade food to share, but that did not seem to matter. There was plenty for everyone. Way too much to eat but I refrained from everything but baked Jerusalem artichoke. I had eaten it raw but never gotten around to cooking it, so it was a delight to finally try it.

I know it sounds like a well known ice cream shop but I also came back with 31 "flavors", varieties of seeds. Most were flowers that I always wanted to try, but never broke down and bought, while some were seeds I had every intention of buying this year. Cinnamon, Lemon, Purple & Thai basil, spaghetti squash, two heirloom tomatoes, elephant garlic, mixed fennel, asparagus, iceberg lettuce and English pea.

I have this all correct because of an Excel spreadsheet shared by Linda Harpe of Beech Grove. Linda also gave a presentation on winter sowing in plastic jugs. Apparently she does a lot of research since she was able to share a lot of information from other areas as well. Thanks Linda.

This has made the "green thumb" itch incessantly. I am not sure that I can wait until our first Weed'em and Reap meeting this March 1st. By the way, we have a change in meeting places. John Teague and the UT Extension Service have been kind enough to let us use their meeting room. More about that later.